Previous efforts include the Thunderbird reboot – and from General Motors, the GTO, Impala and (current) Camaro, also resurrected in the early 2000s.

But why aren't new icons being made?

The short answer is they can't be made. Icons aren't made by committees – according to rules. The icons of the past broke the rules. It's what made them iconic.

Consider the iconic – the original – Pontiac GTO. It was designed by a small conspiracy of engineers, including most famously John DeLorean. They broke GM's rule that only big cars could be built with big engines. DeLorean and his crew took a big engine – Pontiac's 389 V8 – and put it into a medium-sized car, the Tempest. The idea being to make the medium-sized car go very fast – it being considerably lighter than the big car that engine was supposed to go into.